3 ms·

The two biggest things are: 1. You get a native binary without sacrificing interactive programming. With a Graal native image, all of that goes away. With jank

by Jeaye 2y ago

The two biggest things are: 1. You get a native binary without sacrificing interactive programming. With a Graal native image, all of that goes away. With jank, you can still REPL in, change things, JIT compile code, etc. 2. You get Clojure -> JVM level of seamless interop from jank -> C++. I am pretty darn sure that this will be unprecedented, given the challenges of the native space (no standard reflection, differing ABIs, C++ templates, etc). Aside from that, jank is making some huge quality of life improvements over Clojure JVM. I've shared some of this already, but I'll have a post coming out EOQ which will demonstrate the difference in compiler errors between the two. It's night and day.

tombert 2y ago
I'm looking forward to it; being able to utilize C and C++ libraries directly from Clojure is something that I could see being pretty valuable. I've been debating trying my hand at making a simple game engine...it would be great if I could use a Lisp to do it.
- lelanthran 2y ago
  You can use lisp with almost native C support, if you use ecl or gcl.
  - guenthert 2y ago
    ecl and gcl compile to C. That's fine, but not necessary to merely use C libraries; for that you need a C foreign function interface (FFI), which most surviving CL compilers offer. C++ is more of a challenge, hence the Clasp project.
    - beepbooptheory 2y ago
      I feel like Clasp has huge game development potential but has gravitated towards science just because that's where it came from. Like surely one could use it to get good godot bindings for example, but I haven't seen stuff like that around.
    - lelanthran 2y ago
      > ecl and gcl compile to C. That's fine, but not necessary to merely use C libraries; for that you need a C foreign function interface (FFI) Last time I checked, they also allowed literal C code inline in Lisp programs. That's a bit more than the other Lisps which offer FFI.
- 2mlWQbCK 2y ago
  Did you look at Janet? Of course there are many other embeddable LISPs, but I think in particular Janet is a good, light, (subset of) Clojure-like language. It is built into TIC-80 by default, making it already useful for (small) games. https://janet-lang.org/ https://janet-lang.org/ https://tic80.com/ https://tic80.com/

by Jeaye 2y ago

tombert 2y ago

I'm looking forward to it; being able to utilize C and C++ libraries directly from Clojure is something that I could see being pretty valuable. I've been debating trying my hand at making a simple game engine...it would be great if I could use a Lisp to do it.

lelanthran 2y ago
You can use lisp with almost native C support, if you use ecl or gcl.
- guenthert 2y ago
  ecl and gcl compile to C. That's fine, but not necessary to merely use C libraries; for that you need a C foreign function interface (FFI), which most surviving CL compilers offer. C++ is more of a challenge, hence the Clasp project.
  - beepbooptheory 2y ago
    I feel like Clasp has huge game development potential but has gravitated towards science just because that's where it came from. Like surely one could use it to get good godot bindings for example, but I haven't seen stuff like that around.
  - lelanthran 2y ago
    > ecl and gcl compile to C. That's fine, but not necessary to merely use C libraries; for that you need a C foreign function interface (FFI) Last time I checked, they also allowed literal C code inline in Lisp programs. That's a bit more than the other Lisps which offer FFI.
2mlWQbCK 2y ago
Did you look at Janet? Of course there are many other embeddable LISPs, but I think in particular Janet is a good, light, (subset of) Clojure-like language. It is built into TIC-80 by default, making it already useful for (small) games. https://janet-lang.org/ https://janet-lang.org/ https://tic80.com/ https://tic80.com/